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Elminster
Speaks - Part 45

By Ed Greenwood

Doings in Delzimmer, Part 4

So now to the current clack resounding in the streets, stalls, taverns and
back rooms of Delzimmer:

Among the hottest themes in current Delzmaeran news is ethrael fraud: the
selling of false or stolen deeds to outlanders, far away. In this manner,
many citizens unwittingly live in structures that distant folk believe they
now own and may descend upon at any time. Recently the rising pottery merchant
Eloem Elchantragar, an energetic importer of luxury goods from Amn, Tethyr,
and Sembia, was broken in upon in the middle of the night by a large and well-armed
party of visiting Sembians. They were the traveling household of the wealthy
Selgauntan stonecarver Ildel Morusk, who'd come for the first time to occupy
"his" Delzmaer mansion and survey his property and the city he'd
correctly been given to understand was an important trade crossroads of the
region.

Morusk's skilled-at-arms retainers numbered over four dozen, and it was only
with difficulty (and the assistance of Delzmaer citizens and visiting mercenaries
hastily hired by Elchantragar) that the nagra managed to restore order and
quell the ongoing bloodshed as Morusk attempted to slay or capture all of
the squatters and thieves residing in his property and enjoying his goods.

The Sembian was only partly mollified by being given free temporary use of
a nagra-seized (but empty and somewhat crumbling) grand house, and a commission
from Elchantragar to find and slay the sly Sembian serpent who'd sold Morusk
the false deed back in Selgaunt. The stonecarver has since departed Delzimmer
for his home (though he's thought to have come no closer to Selgaunt yet than
Turmish), but the kala are well aware that this is only the latest such incident
to be discovered -- and that other stolen or false ethrael may well be on
sale all over Faerûn.

A honey-tongued and enterprising Lapaliiyan by the name of Imriskril Melsamber
has offered to set himself up as a "maevor" or trade agent (what
other lands call "factors" or "daeasaunce") to represent
distant outlanders and costers. The kala of Delzimmer have reluctantly agreed
to recognize him -- though open debate continues among their ranks (and even
moreso among the citizenry, spurred by announcements from various satraps
of their own desires to become a "maevor for many") as to how a
meavor might be trusted and his claims of representation verified.

Other current Delzmaer gossip revolves around the amorous conquests of
the aforementioned Imriskril Melsamber; a tall, bronzed, and muscular swordsman
who calls himself Thorongh Davarragar (who claims to be a dragonslaying barbarian
of the Savage North" though the mage Shonsarra Tel of Oslin tells me
she doubts Davarragar has ever seen snow in his life, let alone a dragon);
and the native Delzmaer merchant Marlyar Nilthrul. "Mighty Malryar"
is an increasingly fat, jovial seller of imported scents, perfumes, and herbal
baths whose moustache has grown very large -- and who has long enjoyed a reputation
of being an able consort.

Many husbands and fathers of Delzimmer are outraged at one or more of these
three Night Scourges, and more than a few now attend every feast and tavern
revel attended by any of the three -- and do so glowering and toying with
openly worn weapons.

Taverns, stalls, houses, and wellhead womens' water-drawing gatherings around
the city are alive with ever-wilder and more colorful tales of the Night Scourges
leaping into bedchamber windows or hiding on balconies or racing away across
the rooftops chased by furious menfolk.

Yet the most sober citizens caution that none of the three men has yet been
caught at anything more than vainglorious boasting -- bolstered by spiteful
feminine whispers and certain women making boasts of their own. And if Delzimmer
were to lock up every inhabitant guilty of baseless boasting and deceit, nigh
every house would have a lock on it, with its habitual dwellers shut up inside!
(If, that is, there was anyone left to apply such locks.)